Free Republic

The historic swings in oil prices last year were the result of financial speculation from Wall Street and not supply and demand say several sources from the financial and oil communities. Leading the charge in making huge bets on the price of oil were investment banks and hedge funds, these sources tell 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft for a report to be broadcast this Sunday, Jan. 11, at 7 p.m. ET/PT. Michael Masters, a hedge fund manager who tracks the flow of investments in and out of markets, noticed huge amounts of money going from stocks and bonds into oil...

Russia will resume gas exports to Europe as soon as EU monitors arrive at gas compressor stations along the route, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Thursday. "As soon as people show up there and really sit down and start working, gas will immediately resume flowing," Putin told reporters at his residence outside Moscow. Russia, whose image is being damaged by the gas row, was prepared to pay Ukraine a transit fee of $3-4 per 1,000 cubic meters over 100 km, up from $1.70 now, Putin said. Putin, citing the "collapse" of authorities in Kiev and high-level corruption in Ukraine...

Schlumberger, the world’s largest oil field services provider, has begun cutting about 5 percent of its North American work force amid a downturn in oil and natural gas drilling. The cuts , which started Wednesday, will eliminate up to 1,000 administrative, operations and contractor jobs from the company’s 19,000-strong work force in North America, company spokesman Stephen Harris said today. Up to 100 jobs will be cut among the company’s 5,000 employees in the Houston area, he said. The company, with headquarters in Paris and Houston, is laying off employees in response to “the reduced level of activity within the...

OPEC's top producer says oil-producing states in the Middle East will not respond to Iran's call to halt crude supplies to Israeli supporters. "The oil producers who need their income ... are not going to do that," Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal said at a Wednesday news conference. "The use of oil, especially at this time, is an idea that is at least past its worth, he said. "The important thing, oil is not a weapon. You can't reverse a conflict by using oil."

Oil: Joe Kennedy was an easy mark for Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, who promised cheap oil in exchange for Joe's endorsement. But after a first $100 million, the well went dry Monday. How's it feel to be had, Joe?It seemed like easy money at the time. To get cheap oil for the poor, raise his power profile and get his Citizens Energy Corp. set for life, Kennedy made a deal with the brutal dictator in Caracas in 2005 to distribute cheap heating oil to the poor. In exchange for Venezuelan oil at a 40% discount, Kennedy would enhance Hugo Chavez's reputation...

No building in Moscow says “Soviet Union” so much as the headquarters of Gazprom, the Russian gas monopoly. It is more foreboding than the Lubyanka, the former headquarters and torture emporium of the KGB. The romantic charm of the czarist era, epitomized by the Kremlin itself, is wholly absent. Like the state monopoly itself, the structure is gigantic, threatening and very hard to get into. It is set back from the road, and there are layers of security a visitor has to negotiate to see an official. It is easier to get into the Kremlin, No. 10 Downing Street or...

China's dependency on oil imports is expected to rise to 60% by 2020, the Ministry of Land and Resources said. The ministry made the forecast in a planning document on minerals and resources covering the period from 2008 to 2015. The document had been approved by the cabinet, the State Council, the ministry said Wednesday in a statement on its Web site. China, the world's second-largest oil consumer after the US, became a net importer of oil in 1993. Oil import dependency is at about 50% currently. Under the plan, China is targeting more than 200 million mt/year (4 million...

At a time when the oil and gas industry was reaping record profits, producers got a break under Texas' new business tax, according to a draft report from a state advisory committee. Oil and gas producers paid nearly $411 million last year under the new business tax, down from nearly $489 million in 2007. The industry also separately pays state levies including severance taxes, which skyrocketed with 2008's higher oil prices. Most other industries ended up paying more last year than in 2007 under the business-tax expansion, according to a draft of the Business Tax Advisory Committee's report to the...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices slid 12 percent on Wednesday, the largest percentage drop in seven years, after a U.S. government report showed crude inventories rose much more than expected in the world's top energy consumer. Crude oil stocks swelled by 6.7 million barrels, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said, more than seven times the 900,000-barrel increase analysts had expected. Gasoline and distillate stocks also rose as refinery utilization climbed and demand remained sluggish. U.S. crude for February delivery settled at $42.63 a barrel, down $5.95 or 12.25 percent, the biggest single-day loss, percentage-wise, since prices plunged 15.25 percent...

Is it possible to make a car that carries 4 people comfortably, meets modern safety standards, provides decent performance and gets 80 mpg for barely more than $10,000? Even more impressive would be to do it without electric or hybrid drive. If it's at all possible, Gordon Murray may well be the man to do it. Murray is one of the most innovative engineers of the past three decades. Like Colin Chapman before him, he believes weight is the enemy. Murray has created plenty of lightweight, high performance road and race cars but his latest project, called T25, is designed...

Citgo has suspended its fuel-assistance program for low-income homeowners, putting added financial pressure on Joe Kennedy’s Citizens Energy Corp. Citgo, owned by the Venezuelan government, is pulling out of the program that provided home-heating oil to thousands of Northeast customers, via contributions to Kennedy’s nonprofit Citizens Energy. Kennedy has been criticized for accepting money from Citgo at the behest of controversial Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, whose notorious anti-American rants have upset many Americans. Kennedy has defended Citgo’s donations, saying the goal of fuel-assistance program is to help the needy. Kennedy is holding a press conference this afternoon.

Piracy is common off Nigeria and often linked to militants Pirates have seized a ship owned by a French company off the Nigerian coast, taking nine crew members hostage. The company - Bourbon - said the captain had assured them that all crew members were unharmed. Bourbon - which provides specialist boats for the oil and gas industry - said it was working to free the crew. The hostages are from Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon and Indonesia. Piracy is common in Nigerian waters, often linked to militants targeting oil companies. Militants attack vessels and strip them of valuables, taking hostages for...

A commander of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) called on Islamic countries to use oil as a weapon to end the fighting in Gaza, echoing a similar call days earlier by lawmakers in Bahrain. The demands by Brigadier General Mir-Feysal Bagherzadeh on Sunday highlight the depth of anger in the region over the Israeli offensive and the threat it poses to oil prices that recently fell to their lowest levels in years.

The number of rotary rigs drilling in North America continued to slide the week ended Jan. 2, with 98 units—all onshore rigs— retiring in the US to 1,623 working, according to Baker Hughes, Houston. The number of rigs drilling in US waters remained unchanged, with 68 working offshore and 8 in inland water. Canada's rig numbers dropped by 49 to 230 making hole. Last year at this same time, when West Texas Intermediate and New York Mercantile Exchange light, sweet crudes were hovering at just above $99/bbl, the US had 1,774 rigs working, 151 more than this week when oil...

TGS-NOPEC Geophysical Company (TGS) is acquiring a new Multi-Client 3D survey in the DeSoto Canyon area of the Gulf of Mexico. Named "Hernando", the new survey covers a 300 OCS block (6,900 sq. km) area. The MV BOS Arctic has already acquired approximately 25% of the project and is scheduled to complete the acquisition in May of 2009. The project deliverables will include Pre-Stack Time Migration as well as Anisotropic Kirchhoff and Wave Equation Pre-Stack Depth Migrations. Gravity data is also being collected along with the seismic data. "The Hernando survey will provide 3D data over a geological trend that...

After years of refusing to see Iran’s aggressive intentions, most sensible observers of things Middle Eastern now recognize that the most important terrorist organizations, from Islamic Jihad to Hezbollah and Hamas, are essentially Iranian proxies. Figaro this weekend carries [1] a story bluntly headlined “Iran Behind Hamas’ Grad Missiles,” and flatly states that Hamas military commanders have been trained in Iran and Syria to use the deadliest missiles in their inventory. The battle of Gaza is therefore the second between Israel and Iran in two and half years, the first being the 2006 conflict with Hezbollah (which, lest we forget,...

As the U.S. seeks to stockpile oil, China has been doing the same, observers say, and is expected to quicken the pace -- a development that already may be helping to boost oil prices. On Friday, the U.S. Department of Energy said that amid low oil prices, it aims to fill the country's Strategic Petroleum Reserve to capacity this year. That news followed a rare public statement last week from China's top energy official, Zhang Guobao, head of the National Energy Administration, in the People's Daily newspaper that China should take advantage of the falling global energy demand to increase...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — An Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander is calling on Islamic countries to use oil as a weapon to end the fighting in Gaza. The Iranian suggestion this week echoed a similar call made last week by lawmakers in Bahrain. The demands are unlikely to lead to an immediate embargo. They don't come from the Persian Gulf nations' top rulers or carry the support of other major producers like Saudi Arabia.

Permian Basin oilmen have watched wobbling global economies destroy demand, just as record high oil and natural gas prices prompted consumers to cut back their energy use. The record high of $147 a barrel reached in July was not merited by supply, demand, peak oil or geopolitical concerns, said Dr. Daniel Fine of the New Mexico Center for Energy Policy, and prices are now oversold on the down side. He said he expects prices this year to average $70 a barrel.

Iran is proposing use of oil as a weapon

Let me offer two cheers — but not three — for one of the best decisions President-elect Barack Obama has made since winning election: abandoning his campaign promise to impose a "windfall profits tax" on American oil companies. Obama gets a first cheer because he's recognized that there aren't any "windfall" profits left to tax among American energy companies. With the price of oil falling dramatically as the world's economies fall into recession, energy sector companies from refiners to energy giants to oil field service firms are sharply cutting earnings forecasts. Attempting to tax a "windfall" that doesn't exist would...

It’s among a string of salt domes along the Gulf Coast that store hydrocarbons for future use, including the Strategic Petroleum Reserve’s vast oil stockpiles. The only rock that humans eat is impervious to oil and natural gas, making it a storage option along with depleted oil and gas reservoirs and aquifers. “You can always store hydrocarbons in salt,” said Dave Schultz, vice president of Pivotal Energy Development, an arm of Atlanta-based AGL Resources, which acquires and operates its nonutility natural gas assets. About a half-mile from the marker of the original Spindletop gusher — a flagpole next to a...

Iran budget to be based on oil price of $37.50-report Reuters - 2 hours 57 minutes ago TEHRAN, Jan 4 - Iran's 2009/10 budget is expected to be based on an oil price of $37.50 per barrel, a "logical" level in view of last year's price fall, Oil Minister Gholamhossein Nozari was quoted as saying on Sunday. ADVERTISEMENT An Iranian newspaper last month said the government and a parliament committee had an initial agreement to base the budget running from March on an oil price of $45, lower than previously suggested. Iran is the world's fourth-largest oil producer. "The price...

A civil rights group says it is organizing protests against actor Robert Redford for what it says is his political role as the Grinch who is hurting low-income families by fighting oil and gas drilling in Utah. "If Robert Redford succeeds in blocking natural gas production in Utah, it's going to hurt a lot of people on the other end of the pipeline — especially low-income families who are struggling to pay their heating bills," said Niger Innis, national chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality. Innis said CORE and the High Impact Leadership Coalition are launching a "Don't Freeze...

The University of Utah student who disrupted an oil and gas drilling lease auction last month says he has raised $14,000 of the $45,000 he needs to pay the federal Bureau of Land Management to hold 13 parcels he won. Tim DeChristopher won the parcels and ran up the bidding on others in an effort to foil the Dec. 19 auction, which drew controversy from the start because of concerns the drilling could damage Utah's wild lands and would be too close to some national parks. DeChristopher said he never had any intention to develop or pay for the parcels....

MegaWest Energy has provided a corporate update to shareholders along with filing its second quarter interim financial statements and management's discussion and analysis on SEDAR's website at www.sedar.com. Update: We are pleased to report that MegaWest Energy has achieved a number of significant milestones in the quarter ended October 31, 2008. It has increased its leased acreage in Missouri/Kansas, Kentucky and Montana to over 110,000 net acres. More specific project milestones are as described below: MISSOURI Oil sales from the Marmaton River Project (Phase I) commenced in August 2008. The construction and commissioning of the Grassy Creek Project was completed...

Russia's crude output fell 0.7% to 488.105 million mt (9.735 million barrels/day) in 2008 from the previous year, preliminary figures from the country's energy ministry showed Friday. The decrease in average daily output was down 1% from 9.830 million b/d. Crude output in December showed a 2.1% decrease to 40.870 million mt, data from the ministry's central dispatching unit showed. On an average daily basis, crude output in December also fell by 2.1% to 9.624 million b/d. Exports of Russian crude to countries outside the Commonwealth of Independent States totaled 203.091 million mt (4.051 million b/d) in 2008, down 6.2%...

Iran's OPEC governor said Thursday that a meeting before a scheduled March meeting could be a good option to assess the impact of the oil cartel's 4.2 million barrels a day of output cuts. Muhammad Ali Khatibi also said Iran's average output for January would reflect a reduction of 545,000 barrels compared to September levels as part of the OPEC decisions. "It could be useful if we can meet and review the performance of January," said Muhammad Ali Khatibi. "If we meet in February, we can review the performance of the previous month," he said. Chakib Khelil, who left the...

Crude oil ended a year that saw its worst decline, with a 14 percent gain as the commodity surged on the latest inventories report that showed a smaller than expected rise in reserves. Oil closed the day up $5.57 a barrel to end the year at $44.60 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported on Wednesday that oil reserves, for the week ending Dec. 26, rose just a half million barrels from a week ago. Analysts were expecting a build in reserves of 1.75 million barrels. The report also showed a decline in capacity, down...

exican officials could be left looking pretty smart if the price of oil keeps falling. Earlier this year, Mexico locked in contracts to sell its oil for $70 per barrel. Since the market price for a barrel recently fell to $35.35 per barrel, America’s largest trade partner south of the border is raking it in. Unfortunately, the fun is about to end for the U.S.’s Mexican neighbors—and that has big implications for America. Oil is the single most important revenue stream for Mexico. A whopping 40 percent of its budget is derived from oil sales. And as the third-largest supplier...

The oil industry has long studied cracks and pores in rock in the painstaking quest to exploit the best underground highways from which to squeeze energy. A little Houston company has found a way to analyze holes and crevices so tiny they’re dwarfed by a single human hair. Scaled up to the field, such technology can help companies steer clear of dry holes and go where the flow is. “We reveal rocks from the inside,” said John Elmer, chief marketing officer of InGrain Rocks, a private equity-funded startup that is gaining attention in the industry. Mike Bahorich, executive vice president...

U.S. crude oil stocks logged a surprise rise last week as imports rebounded and demand from domestic refiners fell, while soft consumer demand boosted refined fuel supplies, according to government data Wednesday. The Energy Information Administration said total crude oil inventories in the United States rose by 500,000 barrels to 318.7 million in the week to Dec. 26, countering estimates for a drop of 1.5 million barrels. Crude oil imports rose 131,000 barrels per day last week. The report also showed that widely watched crude oil inventories at Cushing, Oklahoma, fell 600,000 barrels to 28.1 million barrels, after having hit...

Output at China's Huge Daqing Oilfield Slows in '08 AFX News Limited Wednesday, December 31, 2008 Crude oil output in PetroChina's Daqing oilfield, China's largest, fell 3.6 percent from a year earlier to 40.2 million tonnes in 2008, or 804,000 barrels per day, Xinhua News Agency reported on Wednesday. Natural gas output in the field, run by PetroChina , the listed arm of state oil giant CNPC, reached 2.76 billion cubic meters, according to the report on www.xinhuanet.com.cn. Daqing accounts for more than a third of PetroChina's domestic oil production, which was 107.64 million tonnes in 2007. Its importance in...

Iraq's oil ministry opened 11 oil and gas fields on Wednesday to foreign firms in a second round of bidding for long-term development contracts it says could more than double its production within a few years. "Under service contracts prepared by the oil ministry, 11 oil and gas fields will undergo complete development," Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani told a Baghdad news conference. He named the oil fields as Majnoon, West Qurna Phase II, Halfaya, East Baghdad, Gharrafa, Qayara, Najmah, Badrah, Kifil/West Kifil/Mirjan and a group in Diyala province, as well as the Siba gas field in Basra province. Shahristani said...

Libya announced on Monday it will cut its daily oil output by 270,000 barrels as of Jan. 1, 2009 in response to an output-cutting decision adopted by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). The size of Libya's cut is larger than the OPEC demand, Shokri Ghanem, chairman of Libya's National Oil Corporation, was quoted as saying by news reports reaching here from Tripoli. The OPEC decided at a meeting on Dec. 17 it will cut production by 2.2 million barrels per day starting next month, in order to shore up prices. It was reported that the Abu Dhabi National...

China starts filling tanks at largest oil reserve: report Thu Dec 25, 12:45 pm ET BEIJING (AFP) – China has started filling tanks at its largest oil reserve, taking advantage of tumbling world crude prices, state media reported Thursday. The facility's 10 tanks, which have a total capacity of 6.3 million barrels, are operated by China National Petroleum Corp., the nation's top oil producer, and are located in the northwest Xinjiang region, the Xinhua news agency said. This is just the first phase of the reserve, which will eventually have an overall capacity of more than 50 million barrels of...

For the first time in two decades Alaska employment growth is likely to level and even decline slightly in the new year due to cutbacks in oil and gas employment and an expected soft year in tourism. “Oil is still the most dynamic industrial sector we have. Just looking at the numbers, without the oil growth things flatten out,” said state labor economist Neal Fried. “It's an important industry because the effects of its growth trickle through a lot of other industries like transportation and business services, which includes engineering,” he said. North Slope operator BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. has...

Bad weather interfering with tanker loading combined with full storage tanks at Valdez forced a shutdown of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline Monday night. Operators stopped pumps along the 800-mile pipeline at 8 p.m.. and planned to hold the line idle for six hours, until 2 a.m., in hopes the wind and waves abate around the tanker dock, said Michelle Egan, spokeswoman for Alyeska Pipeline Service Co., which runs the pipeline. Two tankers are berthed in Valdez now and will begin taking on oil at 8 a.m. today weather permitting, Egan said. If conditions don't improve, the pipeline might be idled...

According to CNN and numerous other sources, the Arab street is upset because Israel is wiping out HAMAS in Gaza. This is what I see: HAMAS's stated goal is to destroy Israel; HAMAS has vowed a never-ending struggle against Israel until they "obliterate" it; HAMAS has vowed never to enter into peace negotiations with Israel and they don't see their cease-fires as opportunities to seek peace, but as respites and chances for rest and resupply; HAMAS has just ended such a unilateral cease fire by raining rockets into Israel. Israel waited for HAMAS to come to their senses to no...

Texas Legislature could be going 'green'Priorities in upcoming session may include renewable energy, environmental jobs By MATTHEW TRESAUGUE Houston Chronicle Dec. 29, 2008, 3:03AM Global warming might be critical to the future of the planet, but inside the Texas Capitol, it's never been much of a match for taxes and tuition. The upcoming legislative session, however, could be different, with lawmakers from both parties already talking about renewable energy, energy efficiency and so-called "green jobs" as priorities. "The climate has changed, atmospherically and politically," said Tom "Smitty" Smith, executive director of the Texas office for Public Citizen, a consumer and...

SEC approves new rules for companies to report oil, gas reserves The Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday approved updated rules for energy companies that will require them to provide more detailed information to investors when reporting oil and gas reserves. Reserves are an oil company's most valuable asset and a critical indicator of its long-term financial prospects. Any reduction in their estimated size is a concern for investors. The SEC's reporting rules for oil and natural gas reserves were adopted more than 25 years ago, and the changes are intended to reflect technological changes in how oil companies determine...

Omani Sultan Qaboos bin Said al-Said stressed here late Monday that a mechanism is needed to stabilize oil prices. Qaboos made the remarks at the opening ceremony of the 29th annual summit of the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). "There is a need to establish a mechanism for stability in oil prices, in a way that it would not burden the consumer ... and not harm the producing countries, while it allows their development plans to continue," the Omani Sultan told the Gulf leaders. Stressing the importance of stable oil prices, Qaboos said that to maintain a balanced economic development...

The federal government is taking steps that may open California's fabled coast to oil drilling in as few as three years, an action that could place dozens of platforms off the Sonoma, Mendocino and Humboldt coasts, and raises the specter of spills, air pollution and increased ship traffic into San Francisco Bay. Millions of acres of oil deposits, mapped in the 1980s when then-Interior Secretary James Watt and Energy Secretary Donald Hodel pushed for California exploration, lie a few miles from the forested North Coast and near the mouth of the Russian River, as well as off Malibu, Santa Monica...

China will take advantage of sliding oil prices to increase imports and build up its strategic reserves, a senior economic planner said. Zhang Guobao, vice chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, said in a report carried by the People's Daily that China will also move forward with phase two of building strategic reserve facilities. The state planner has finished the draft for Phase II of building the reserves, involving total storage capacity of 26.8 mln cubic meters. China also encourages companies to use spare storage capacity to increase their stockpiles, Zhang said, adding that overseas investment and exploration...

Libya has told oil companies to cut output by 270,000 barrels per day from Jan. 1, more than the reduction it needs to make under this month's OPEC deal to pump less, top oil official Shokri Ghanem said on Monday.

Oil prices may rebound to around $100 per barrel between 2010 and 2015, International Energy Agency Chief Economist Fatih Birol predicted on Monday. Birol told an energy conference that he saw downward pressure on oil prices in 2009 but said he expected prices to move up again in 2010 with a recovery in the world economy. Oil is on track for a nearly 60 percent loss this year, the biggest annual fall since futures began trading 25 years ago. Oil prices rose above $40 a barrel on Monday, up nearly 8 percent on the previous session, after violence between Israel...

As oil prices fall to levels not seen since mid-2000s, costs are becoming more important for assessing the near term in Alaska Some say Alaska survived $40 oil in the past. Others say $40 ain’t what it used to be. Unveiling her fiscal year 2010 budget on Dec. 15, Gov. Sarah Palin said oil at $40 to $42 a barrel would have been considered “healthy” a couple of years ago, and even “relatively high, compared to some years.” She added that “compared to the $140 that we were blessed with many months ago, the $40-something a barrel looks relatively low.”...

South Korea's oil products demand in November was 12% lower on the year as economic activity continued to slow, at 60.27 million barrels compared with 68.83 million barrels in November 2007, according to data from state-run Korea National Oil Corp. Demand was flat compared with the previous month. In the first 11 months of the year, Koreans consumed a total 691.12 million barrels of refined products, down 4.6% from 723.24 million barrels consumed over the same period in 2007. Demand for fuel oil saw the sharpest year on year slump in November, falling 30.4% from 7.1 million barrels to 4.94...

Global crude futures traded nearly $5/barrel higher in the European morning trading session Monday, as fears persisted over political tensions in the Middle East following Israeli air strikes in the Gaza strip. At 0944 GMT, Front-month ICE Brent traded at $43.18/b, a rise of $4.81/b. NYMEX WTI also jumped sharply to $42.20/b, a $4.49/b gain. But by 1100 GMT, front month ICE Brent was trading at $41.30/b, a $2.93/b rise on the overnight figure. Front-month NYMEX WTI contract also slipped from the earlier high to $40.54/b. "This instability will unsettle World markets today and may well push oil prices higher...

The two largest offshore drilling companies, one of the largest oilfield service companies, and other major firms have announced plans to relocate their corporate offices to Switzerland: “Noble Corp. today became the latest in a recent string of Houston oil and gas firms to announce plans to move their corporate headquarters to Switzerland, a change experts said is cheifly for tax purposes. The world’s second largest offshore drilling contractor, now incorporated in the Cayman Islands and run from Sugar Land [Texas], said its board has approved the change, and now will put the proposal to shareholders and the Cayman courts....